Major update to M&A tool adds speed, features, ease of use

ARLINGTON, Virginia. For M&A professionals in post-merger integration and corporate development, eknow inc today announced a major mid-cycle update of the eknow Integrator software, to version 11.5.

Developed since 1999, eknow Integrator is the most mature, easy-to-use web-based tool for executing M&A, corporate reorganizations and divestitures. With version 11.5, Integrator puts even more distance between itself and the alternatives. Version 11.5 is the largest Integrator update since 2009, adding significant new functionality and raw performance while incrementally improving ease of use for every category of Integrator user.

What's New in Integrator 11.5:

• Raw speed in large queries: Integrator 11.5 accelerates the most complex program office report queries by approximately 8X.
• More drill-down metrics: All applicable views now display "apples-to-apples" progress metrics, rolled up by activity type, sub-team, team, M&A phase, and acquisition. Instantly identify any deviation at the top level and drill down to its source in seconds.
• New financial impact views: Integrator 11.5 adds alternative new roll-up views of total synergy component costs and benefits by team, acquisition, and time period.
• New flexible dates feature: Many plan dates are crude estimates or simply unknowable until months into the effort. Users therefore enter bogus dates or none at all. Unique to Integrator 11.5 is a third, more flexible option that streamlines date entry, eliminates constant date revision, and improves date reliability.
• Dependent date features: Integrator 11.5 allows tasks to be dependent not only on other selected tasks, but on any relevant date field in Integrator (e.g., Acquisition Close Date).
• Redesigned activity timeline: Integrator's timeline view has been completely revised, reformatted and expanded. Timeline view also displays progress metrics rolled up by month, M&A phase, and acquisition.
• New Pre-Diligence Views: Built-in Pre-Diligence scoring of acquisition pipeline. Populate with any categories and criteria. Graphical results as well as summary / drill-down data of data.
• Universal Action menu saves time: The context sensitive "Action menu" button eliminates 85% of steps required to add most new tasks or upload documents. The Action menu also now consolidates several other commands from other locations, making them easier to find. And because Integrator users already depend on the Action menu button every day, they already know how to use it in 11.5.
• New multiple-window interface: Until 11.5, Integrator navigation opened every page in a single active dashboard page. With 11.5, users can open any number of independent Integrator pages by shift-clicking the page links in the navigation menu. This allows users to quickly switch back and forth between views without waiting to reload a web page.

"Obviously we are very pleased with Integrator 11.5," said Manuel Sanches, eknow President and CTO. "We improved top-down visibility for management. We saved rank and file users possibly hundreds of mouse-clicks per day. The new date and metrics features address more of the issues that have made traditional project software so unpopular with M&A teams. And yet these new features do not add to the learning curve for most new users. By careful design we have extended integrator's capabilities while actually reducing how much most new users have to learn on average."

"As with most Integrator revisions, 11.5 allows eknow clients to do even more, even more easily. With 11.5 we think it's even more clear that for M&A, Integrator is now to spreadsheets what spreadsheets were to graph paper and a pencil." eknow Integrator customers will be updated to 11.5 free of charge during the month of June.

About Integrator
Integrator's unique design and automation make it the easiest-to-use, lowest-risk, and most cost-effective platform to execute M&A, divestitures and reorganizations. Integrator's ease of use enables clients to begin using the system immediately, with no IT resources, little or no training for most users, and little or no consultant support. With Integrator, even the smallest program teams can now easily manage and track far more teams, plans, contributors, data, documents, and results – even across multiple simultaneous acquisitions – with vastly less effort. eknow Integrator is provided as securely hosted software-as-a-service.

About eknow inc
eknow inc is an Arlington, Virginia-based leader in mergers & acquisitions (M&A) automation software solutions. eknow solutions have been helping companies identify, execute, and increase returns from M&A, restructuring, and major corporate initiatives since 1999. 

For more information on eknow or our eknow Integrator service, or to schedule a demo, contact eknow's EVP of Sales & Marketing at: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or (703) 875-9191.

ARLINGTON, Virginia. For professionals in corporate development, Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A), and post-M&A integration, eknow inc today announced new features in the latest update of eknow Integrator, to version 11.0.4.

Since 1999, eknow Integrator has been the most mature, easy-to-use web-based tool for M&A, corporate reorganizations and divestitures. Version 11.0.4 adds several new features for Integrator users in executive, program, and project roles:

• New and revised real-time progress charts and scorecard summaries for each M&A phase and activity
• Instant access to Issue & Risk Mitigation plans
• New Decision Log with dedicated, easy-to-use management tool
• One-click export of multiple charts and reports from any Integrator page
• New tool for quickly organizing international regions, countries, sites, synergies and deliverables in multinational acquisitions
• Instantly preview, send or re-send any Integrator "iMemo" to any user in just one or two clicks
• Extensive new Glossary and Integrator FAQs built into Integrator
• New built-in reports to monitor usage by user, timeline, or Integrator page

Manuel Sanches, eknow President, Founder and CTO said, "The priorities for this release were ease of use and more direct access to what M&A managers and team members need. We are extremely happy with how many tangible enhancements we were able to squeeze into this point release. Now our challenge is to make our next release, v. 11.0.5, just as great." Mr. Sanches confirmed that 11.0.5 is on track for release later this quarter.

Integrator's unique design and automation make it the easiest-to-use, lowest-risk, and most cost-effective means to execute M&A, divestitures and reorganizations. Integrator's ease of use enables clients to begin using the system immediately, with no IT resources, little or no training for most users, and little or no consultant support. With Integrator, even the smallest program teams can now easily manage and track far more teams, plans, contributors, data, documents, and results – even across multiple simultaneous acquisitions – with vastly less effort.

For more information on eknow or our eknow Integrator service or to schedule an online demo, contact eknow's EVP of Sales & Marketing at: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or via phone at 1 (703) 875-9191.

About eknow inc
eknow inc is an Arlington, Virginia-based leader in mergers & acquisitions (M&A) automation software solutions. eknow solutions have been helping companies identify, execute, and increase returns from M&A, restructuring, and major corporate initiatives since 1999. For more information, visit www.eknow.com.

ARLINGTON, Virginia—eknow inc today announced expanded program office control options over user access to critically sensitive data managed in eknow's flagship product, eknow Integrator. Said eknow President, Founder and CTO Manuel Sanches, "With Integrator v11.0.3 we've added important new group- and organization-level access control options that our customers have requested. But we made the new options extremely simple to use. They work exactly the same way for every type of Integrator data."

eknow Integrator, initially developed in 1999, is the most mature, easy-to-use web-based tool for powering the M&A process from corporate development, through due diligence to post-merger integration.

eknow Integrator's built-in access control ensures that the proper visibility of any document, project, task, synergy, head count, or financial details is easily set and automatically restricted to the right individuals, with virtually no administrative overhead required. This simplicity and automation is the key to avoiding human error and increasing the productivity of all parties involved in the M&A process.

With one menu selection, client program offices or team leads can make items public, or securely restrict them to appropriate individuals. For example, access can be restricted to the named owners of an item, to all members of the associated team, to only team leads of that team, to all team leads on all teams, and other options. And for each of these options, one additional menu selection will further restrict visibility to only team members from one organization (i.e., the buyer, seller, law firm, or investment bank).

Integrator’s unique design and automation make it the easiest-to-use, lowest-risk, and most cost-effective means to execute M&A and restructuring. Integrator’s ease of use enables clients to begin using the system immediately, with no IT resources, little or no training for most users, and little or no consulting support. With Integrator, even the smallest program teams can now easily manage and track far more teams, plans, contributors, data, documents, and results — even across multiple simultaneous acquisitions — with vastly less effort.

For more information on eknow or our eknow Integrator service or to schedule an online demo, contact eknow’s EVP of Sales & Marketing, Ken Balog at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 703-875-9191.

ARLINGTON, Virginia—March 2, 2010. eknow inc, the leading M&A tool provider, today announced the addition of a second, parallel, SAS 70 Type II data center.

“The new data center not only supports eknow’s increased client demand, but it also improves redundancy, disaster recovery, security, and system performance,” said Manuel Sanches, eknow President, Founder, and CTO.

eknow is the developer of eknow Integrator, the first and most mature, easy-to-use web-based tool for post-M&A integration, corporate development, due diligence, restructuring, and reorganizations. eknow Integrator, now at version 11.0.3, has been developed with customer and industry input since 1999.

According to CNBC, Wall Street analysts and industry experts, 2010 is set to see a significant increase in M&A activity. Yet these same experts point out that historically 50% – 75% of all M&A transactions fail to return shareholder value, due to poor integration and/or planning.

eknow Integrator tilts the odds in favor of the eknow client. Integrator’s unique design and automation make it the easiest-to-use, lowest-risk, and most cost-effective means to execute M&A and restructuring. Integrator’s ease of use enables clients to begin using the system immediately, with little or no training for most users, and no IT resources. With Integrator, even the smallest program teams can now easily manage and track far more teams, plans, contributors, data, documents, and results — even across multiple simultaneous acquisitions — with vastly less effort.

Alan Croll, eknow Chief Executive Officer added, “The demand for secure, reliable, and affordable M&A automation tools continues to rise, and this additional data center adds growth capacity and business continuity protection for all of our clients."